Osama Bin Laden widows charged for illegally entering Pakistan

Three of Osama Bin Laden’s widows have been charged with illegally entering and living in Pakistan, the country’s interior ministry has said.

The three women, said to be two Saudis and one Yemeni, have been in custody in Pakistan since May, when US commandos raided the house where they lived with Bin Laden – who was killed in the raid – and their children.

Osama Bin Laden was killed by US commandos last May (Picture: Reuters)

Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik said the three were recently charged in court, although the charges could be the first stage of the formal process towards deportation rather than imprisonment.

Mr Malik said the children were free to leave Pakistan and could stay with their mothers while the legal process was concluded.

Bin Laden and his wives lived in the Pakistani army garrison town of Abbottabad for five years before the CIA traced him to a walled compound.

The unilateral US raid both humiliated and angered the Pakistani army, which had failed to apprehend Bin Laden despite him living just 50km (31 miles) from Islamabad.

Bin Laden, who was buried at sea, managed to escape detection for a decade despite a $25million (£15million) bounty on his head for his involvement in organising the September 11th 2001 terror attacks.

Last month authorities in Pakistan destroyed the three-storey compound where he and his family had lived, removing a concrete reminder of the country’s association with the world’s most-wanted man.

A family in Abbottabad watches as Osama Bin Laden’s former compound is demolished (Picture: AP)